essay about sleeping beauty

A Summary and Analysis of the Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle

‘Sleeping Beauty’ is, depending on which version of the story you read, called Sleeping Beauty, Talia, Little Briar Rose, Rosamond, or Aurora. This is because, like many other classic fairy tales, the tale of Sleeping Beauty exists in numerous versions, each of which is subtly – or, in some cases, quite strikingly – different from the others.

In the Italian version published in the Pentamerone , an Italian collection of fairy tales published in 1634, the heroine is named Talia. Charles Perrault, in his version published later in the century, calls her the Sleeping Beauty. The Brothers Grimm call her Dornröschen or ‘Little Briar Rose’, which is sometimes adapted as ‘Rosamond’. In the Disney film, the adult heroine is named Aurora. For the purposes of clarity here, we’re going to call her ‘Sleeping Beauty’ or ‘the princess’.

Nevertheless, the overall plot of these different versions of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ remains broadly the same, so it might not prove entirely impossible to offer a short plot summary.

‘Sleeping Beauty’: plot summary

A king is protective of his beautiful daughter, the princess. An evil fairy curses the princess, pronouncing that she will die when she is pricked by a spindle. However, a good fairy manages to intervene so that the prophecy is softened: the princess will not die if she is pricked with a spindle, but she will fall unconscious for a hundred years. The king bans flax and spinning equipment from his palace, so as to protect his daughter from such a fate.

However, around fifteen or sixteen years later, when the king and queen were away from the palace, the princess was exploring many rooms when she came upon an old woman with a spindle, who knew nothing about the spinning ban.

The princess asked if she could have a go, and the old woman let her – you can guess what happened next. The princess pricked her finger on the spindle, and dropped down unconscious. The old woman fetched help, and everyone tried to revive the princess, but to no avail. So there was nothing for it but to let the princess sleep for a hundred years.

The good fairy cast a spell that essentially protected the princess in the palace, with trees grown up around the building and all of the princess’s servants, attendants, and pets made to sleep for a hundred years too.

After the century had elapsed, another king (of a different royal family) sits on the throne. His son, the prince, heard tales of the palace where the princess slept, and became interested in what he’d find if he ventured there. So he cut a path through to the palace and at length came upon the sleeping form of the princess, falling to his knees at the sight of her beauty.

His timing couldn’t have been better. For at that moment, the hundred years came to an end and the spell was lifted; the princess woke, and seeing the prince she fell in love with him, and they talked a great deal (well, after all, the princess had missed out on a hundred years of news).

The whole of the palace then woke up – the servants and animals that had been put under the spell by the good fairy – and the prince and princess lived happily together, having two children, a daughter and a son whom they called Morning and Day respectively.

The prince returned to his parents, the King and Queen, but said nothing about the princess whom he had fallen in love with, because the Queen was part ogress and there were rumours that she had ‘ogreish’ tendencies – in other words, she wanted to eat people. The prince married Sleeping Beauty in private, without his parents’ knowledge.

A couple of years later, the King died and his son, the prince, became King, and brought his wife publicly to the court. But shortly after this he had to go to war with the emperor of a neighbouring country.

In his absence, his mother, the Queen Mother, sent away Sleeping Beauty to the country, and sent the cook to kill Morning, the young daughter of the King and Sleeping Beauty, and cook her so that the Queen Mother could eat her with a nice sauce. But the cook was a kind man, who instead slaughtered a lamb and dished it up for the Queen Mother to eat. (She couldn’t tell that it was Lamb and not Little Girl that she was eating.) Meanwhile, the cook sent away Morning to be kept safe by his wife in their chambers in the palace.

But the Queen Mother was soon hungry again, and wanted to have Day for her dinner this time. Once again, the cook sent away the little boy and served up a young kid or baby goat for the Queen Mother to feast upon instead. But the Queen Mother’s appetite was insatiable, and next she wanted to eat the Queen, Sleeping Beauty, herself. The cook despaired of being able to deceive the Queen Mother a third time, so he went up to Sleeping Beauty’s chambers with the intention of slitting her throat.

When the Queen saw him, she told him to kill her, so she might join her children, whom she feared dead. The cook told her that her children were alive and well and of how he had tricked the ogreish Queen Mother, and he took her to where his wife was looking after the Queen’s children. Then the cook dished up a hind for the Queen Mother to eat, thinking it was Sleeping Beauty.

But soon after this, the evil Queen Mother heard Sleeping Beauty and her children in the palace, where they were concealed, and she realised she had been tricked! She set about plotting her revenge, ordering that a huge tub be placed in the courtyard and filled with vipers and venomous toads and other dangerous creatures, so that Sleeping Beauty, Morning, Day, the cook, his wife, and his maid, might be thrown in there the next day, and suffer a horrible death.

Next day, the prisoners were brought out for the sentence to be carried out – but just as they were about to be thrown into the tub, the King returned, and, angry that her plan had been foiled, the ogreish Queen Mother threw herself in the tub and was killed by the snakes and toads. The King was reunited with Sleeping Beauty and his children, and they all lived happily ever after.

‘Sleeping Beauty’: analysis

This summary of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is based on the tale that the Opies include in their The Classic Fairy Tales ; there are some minor differences between the various versions of the tale, which has been told by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, among others.

Indeed, the only reason the Brothers Grimm didn’t throw out ‘Sleeping Beauty’ from their catalogue of fairy tales for being too French was the tale’s suggestive affinities with the myth of Brynhild in the Völsunga saga, which was the inspiration for Wagner’s Ring Cycle among other things. (Brynhild was imprisoned in a remote castle behind a wall of shields and doomed to sleep there in a ring of flames until a man comes along, and rescues and marries her.)

It was Charles Perrault, however, who first made the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty famous, when he included it in his landmark 1697 collection of fairy stories. Yet as we remarked at the beginning of our summary and analysis of this, one of the most famous of all fairy tales, the basic story predates Perrault, and a similar version can be found in the 1630 Pentamerone .

Yet even by this stage, the story of Sleeping Beauty was a few centuries old: one of the stories in the anonymous fourteenth-century prose romance Perceforest features a princess named Zellandine who, like Sleeping Beauty after her, is cursed to end up being pricked by a spindle, an accident which prompts her to fall asleep until – you’ve guessed it – a dashing prince, in this case a chap named Troylus, arrives to wake her up. (Unfortunately, this important medieval collection of tales remains criminally out of print and in need of a good translation/edition: Oxford University Press or Penguin, please commission one!)

‘Sleeping Beauty’ features many of the common tropes of classic fairy tales: the beautiful princess, the evil stepmother figure (the evil Queen Mother), the handsome prince, the good fairy, and the patterning of three (the Queen Mother’s planned meals of Morning, Day, and Sleeping Beauty respectively).

Throw in a palace and a bit of suspended animation, not to mention a cunning servant (that enterprising and kindly cook) and you have all of the ingredients of a classic.

Continue to explore the world of fairy tales with these classic Victorian fairy stories , our history of the ‘Puss in Boots’ fairy tale , our discussion of the Bluebeard myth , and our analysis of the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairy tale .

8 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of the Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale”

Reblogged this on Greek Canadian Literature .

There was me thinking that the story ended when the prince and princess got married. This is marvellous and, indeed, very Wagnerian with the Queen Mother hurling herself to a horrible death, for no real reason, actually. This has cheered up my afternoon no end!

I’m with you. I didn’t realise that at all. I love the Queen Mother’s ‘Ogreish’ tendencies. Many of us have a MIL like that!

I’m glad I’m not the only one! The story is actually much better with the ogre Queen Mother… I can certainly relate!

I think you will find that the story ended once they had married, immediately after the wedding in fact. Who would call their children Morning and Day? Someone has made it up.

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Reblogged this on The Slavic Polytheist and commented: Another take on history of Sleeping Beauty

• Pingback: The Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale | Interesting Literature | Writer's Blog

Just found and love this series about fairy tales! (which I found by looking for the source of Alladin being Chinese.) I own the Opies’ book and it’s indeed lovely. The post about Rumplestildkin was especially fascinating and makes sense in mythic terms– I never saw an analysis we suggests this, but it makes sense. One of the best discussions of fairy tales I have read is the first chapter in Rodger Sale’s book “Fairy tales and after” which features a wonderful chapter on fairy tales. (He analyses Snow White from the angle of the rivalry between an aging and a young, flowering girl displacing her, and suggests that it’s because beauty and youth was the power source for women in those times.) I also read Bruno Bettelheim but at this point I think he’s full of it! I believe that fairy tales are best analyzed in terms of their historical and social context and origins.

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Sleeping Beauty History and Literary Analysis

This essay sample essay on Sleeping Beauty Essay offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion are provided below.

Sleeping Beauty Literature Review

The story of Sleeping Beauty has evolved over time and has been changed slightly throughout the different versions. It has changed in order to fit social norms for the time and context has been altered to appeal to the current audiences. The three main versions of Sleeping Beauty are the Charles Perrault in 1697, which was adapted from the original fairy tale Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattistas Basile in 1634.

Perraults version was a tale of rape, adultery and cannibalism.

The Brothers Grimm interpretation, from 1812 that made the story more tame and the Walt Disney version from 1959 that was drawn mainly from the St. Petersburg Ballet version of 1890 and the Grimm Brothers version, obviously this version was cleaned up a lot from the predecessors in order to appeal to a younger and more moralistic audience.

Most Fairytales hold a kind of formulae that can be seen in Vladimir Propp’s morphology of the folk tale. His theory suggests that most stories just use the same formulae however in different contexts.

Sleeping beauty is a typical example of how mostly all of the characteristics used in storytelling are used in this narrative. Such characteristics used in Sleeping Beauty are the character types. The hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the helper, the princess and the father or in this case the parents.

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The fairy godmothers play a huge part in the storyline of sleeping beauty, you could say they act as the donors who provide an object with magical properties, such as the sword given to prince charming that defeats the villain.

When Was The Original Sleeping Beauty Written

They are also the dispatchers and the helpers who send the hero in the right direction to save the princess. Although these don’t seem like the main characters in the story, they hold together the narrative and fill in the gaps that link the events in the story, also without the fairy godmothers we would be missing out on our fix of magic that is needed in any good fairytale. Propp’s theory suggests that these character types are found in every story or film but are just rearranged for different effects.

In Shrek, typical fairytale themes are implemented, however the traditional ideas and social norms found in fairytales are swapped around. ‘Shrek upstages Prince Charming and Princess Fiona saves Shrek from Robin Hood and his merry men’. Women are not necessarily depicted as being an inferior sex nowadays as they were back when the initial story was wrote. Sleeping Beauty came from a time when the lesson was that women should wait quietly for the man who would give them their role in society, Not such the case in modern twists on fairytales. However Propp’s strict order of characters and events is restrictive.

The format he suggests may change the way in which text is received, for example if the main character dies, the audience is left unhappy because there has not been a happy ending. It is the typical story line in most children’s fairly tales, where there is a vulnerable female in need of rescue by her Prince Charming. We see this again, and again in stories such as Snow White, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. All of these stories have reoccurring patterns in them such as the evil villain, a spell that needs to be broken, a hero prince who needs to rescue a damsel in distress, all of these elements leading up to a happy ending.

Propp’s actions as functions of narratives can also be seen throughout the different stories, they are used to progress the narrative. The preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return and the recognition. Firstly The kingdom is preparing for the new born of the king and queen, whilst this gives the villain an incentive to complicate things and upset the palace, In great joy brings great upset this is common at the beginning of most stories, something bad must happen in order to be fixed.

Sleeping beauty is then transferred to a safe house in the woods in the Disney version and we meet the prince who is gifted a magical sword by the fairy godmothers, and therefore transferred into the hero. After Sleeping beauty pricks her finger and falls into the deep sleep, the struggle is then on to revive her. The prolonged period of time that varies between the stories depends on the hero, whom overcomes the evil villain with the help of the good fairies.

The penultimate sequence in which the hero defeats the villain transformed into the dragon, to me resembles the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. The prince then finds the princess and gives her the kiss of life and she is awoken. He then returns with the princess and gets recognised as a hero when they get married. However this is not the end in the Charles Perrault version as the prince’s mother is not happy with the marriage, and tries to eat the princess and the newly married couples children, eventually she throws herself into a vat of vipers and dies.

There are quite vast differences in the plots of Perrault’s version and the Grimm brother’s adaptation. Most of the beginning part of the Perrault version is the same as the brothers Grimm adaptation, it is the second part that is altered. Perrault was also one of the last interpreters of the tale to avoid waking Beauty with a kiss. Most of the versions written and produced since then have used the kiss to awaken the sleeping princess. Instead she was awoken when she was ready to give birth to her baby that had been unwillingly forced upon her whilst she was asleep. The overall conceit of Aurora “awakening” to a man’s kiss suggests that her maturity may indeed be a sexual one. ’ It is thought that the story was changed in this way to ‘appeal to the opulent court and aristocracy of Louis XIV of France’. In the Charles Perrault version, the prince’s mother who is an ogre attempts to eat sleeping beauties children, which sounds like more of a horror story than a fairy-tale. The Brothers Grimm version left out this part of the story all together as did Walt Disney’s version because this is far too gruesome for a make-believe story.

Also, another variation is that in Perrault’s adaptation the princess is asleep for 100 years and her prince comes to her after hearing about the legend of her generations later. In the Disney movie and the brothers Grimm adaptations, the princess is only asleep long enough for the prince to defeat the villain and give her the kiss of life. Maybe this was altered from the original because of the idea of never seeing your loved ones again was too traumatic for a modern audience and especially children.

The good fairies puts the residents of the kingdom under a temporary sleep whilst sleeping beauty is under the spell to lower social panic. Charles Perrault’s version also includes more than 3 fairies bestowing gifts on the young princess, and the villain in the story being an aged fairy that everyone thought was dead. The story of Sleeping Beauty focuses mainly on the seemingly idealistic views that ‘true love conquers all’ and that ‘home is where the heart is’. Sleeping beauty and fairytales in general give people a hope and fantastical view on life and appeal to a modern audience because they allow for a type of escapism.

For those that have been in love can relate to the stories. Dream like scenarios where all is not real but the situations are similar to those that happen in real life. 1280 words

Bibliography

• Katy C. Peck. (19/01/08). Analytical Essay – Sleeping Beauty. http://www. helium. com/items/806737-analytical-essay-sleeping-beauty Date Accessed 01/03/11
• English National Ballet. http://www. ballet. org. uk/the-sleeping-beauty/the-sleeping-beauty-story. html Date Accessed 28/02/11
• Notes on Sleeping Beauty. http://www. sparknotes. com/film/sleepingbeauty/themes. tml. Date Accessed 05/03/11
• Notes on Characters in Sleeping Beauty. http://www. sparknotes. com/film/sleepingbeauty/characters. html Date Accessed 05/03/11
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• John K. Davis. (26/01/09). The story behind sleeping beauty, early versions weren’t meant for adults. http://www. suite101. com/content/the-story-of-sleeping-beauty-a92332 Date Accessed 26/02/11
• Propps Theory. http://www. adamranson. plus. com/Propp. htm Date Accessed 26/02/11
• Charles Perrault, Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. http://www. pitt. edu/~dash/perrault01. html Date Accessed 26/01/11
• Perrault’s Fairy Tales (New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1969), pp. 3-21
• Heidi Anne Heiner. (26/08/10). http://www. surlalunefairytales. com/sleepingbeauty/history. html Date Accessed 02/03/11
• Sleeping Beauty, Brothers Grimm Summary. http://www. grimmstories. com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/sleeping_beauty. Date Accessed 23/02/11
• Diana Katheryn Geleskie ; Vannessa Colberg. Walt Disneys Sleeping Beauty, a literary approach. 9/ 04/09 (http://people. setonhill. edu/gel7219/sleepingbeautyliterarycritique/fairytalecanon. html
• Vladimir Propp (1968) Morphology of the Folktale. University of Texas Press.. http://www. scribd. com/doc/37368054/Fairy-Tales. Date Accessed 25/02/11 ——————————————–
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Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty Essay (Article)

Quote that interested me, how the tale resonates in my life, works cited.

Folk and fairy tales are stories which have to do with everyday and may include magic and fantasy. This tales often have hidden morals that we can apply in our lives. “Sleeping Beauty” is one of the classical fairy tales that I have read and enjoyed.

In this paper, I shall provide a brief discussion following my reading of the fairy tale. Particularly, I shall elaborate on a quote from “Sleeping Beauty” that I found particularly interesting. In addition to this, I will discuss how this story resonates in my life.

The quotation that I find particularly interesting from “Sleeping Beauty” is “The king, to avoid the misfortune foretold by the old fairy, caused immediately proclamation to be made, whereby everybody was forbidden, on pain of death, to spin with a distaff and spindle, or to have so much as any spindle in their houses” (Perrault).

I find it interesting the King was willing to take the gifts from the seven fairies and yet expect that he could cheat fate and avoid the curse by the old fairy. Since the gifts by the seven fairies were realized in the princesses’ life, it would stand to reason that the “gift” by the old fairy would also be inevitable.

Another thing that I find interesting in this quote is that the king went into the trouble of having all spindles destroyed and yet failed to tell the princess of the curse placed upon her. It is conceivable that the princess would have avoided her fate had she been informed about the curse place upon her by the old fairy.

One of the notions that resonate in my life from this fairy tale is the concept of good triumphing over evil. In the tale, the princesses had her detractors who wished her unhappiness.

While the seven fairies wished the princess well and bestowed upon her magnificent gifts, the old fairy wished her ill. After her marriage to the prince, the princess and her children were still troubled by the prince’s mother who sought to eat them.

Even so, the princess managed to overcome evil and emerge triumphant. In my life as well, there are people who wish me well and those who wish me ill. While those who wish me ill may scheme against me and appear to succeed in their mission, they mostly end up failing for I emerge victories such like Sleeping Beauty.

Another moral that I relate with from the tale is that adversity brings about success. In “sleeping Beauty”, the princess was able to meet with her handsome prince whom she was destined to marry after the curse was lifted. I can relate to this since according to me, every unpleasant experience that I experience only draws me closer to achieving real success in my life.

While “Sleeping Beauty” is a classical tale written long time ago, it still continues to interest people to date. The tale also contains morals and aspects that resonate with our lives.

In this essay, I have highlighted the quote from “Sleeping Beauty” which interested me the most and illustrated why I found it interesting. I have also highlighted how the concept of good triumphing over evil, which is contained in the fairy tale, resonates with me.

Perrault, Charles. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood . 1998. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 23). Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty. https://ivypanda.com/essays/folk-and-fairy-tales-sleeping-beauty/

"Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty." IvyPanda , 23 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/folk-and-fairy-tales-sleeping-beauty/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty'. 23 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/folk-and-fairy-tales-sleeping-beauty/.

1. IvyPanda . "Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/folk-and-fairy-tales-sleeping-beauty/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Folk and Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty." January 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/folk-and-fairy-tales-sleeping-beauty/.

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15 The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood

From the fairy tales of charles perrault,, illustrated by harry clarke with an introduction by thomas bodkin..

There were formerly a King and a Queen, who were so sorry that they had no children, so sorry that it cannot be expressed. They went to all the waters in the world; vows, pilgrimages, all ways were tried and all to no purpose. At last, however, the Queen proved with child, and was brought to bed of a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the Fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (they found seven), that every one of them might give her a gift, as was the custom of Fairies in those days, and that by this means the Princess might have all the perfections imaginable.

After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King’s palace, where was prepared a great feast for the Fairies. There was placed before every one of them a magnificent cover with a case of massive gold, wherein were a spoon, knife and fork, all of pure gold set with diamonds and rubies. But as they were all sitting down at table, they saw come into the hall a very old Fairy whom they had not invited, because it was above fifty years since she had been out of a certain tower, and she was believed to be either dead or inchanted. The King ordered her a cover, but  could not furnish her with a case of gold as the others, because they had seven only made for the seven Fairies. The old Fairy fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threat between her teeth. One of the young Fairies, who sat by her, overheard how she grumbled; and judging that she might give the little Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from the table, and hid herself behind the hangings, that she might speak last, and repair, as much as possible she could, the evil which the old Fairy might intend.

In the mean while all the Fairies began to give their gifts to the Princess. The youngest gave her for gift, that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the wit of an angel; the third, that she should have a wonderful grace in every thing she did; the fourth, that she should dance perfectly well; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play upon all kinds of music to the utmost perfection.

The old Fairy’s turn coming next, with a head shaking more with spite than age, she said, that the Princess should have her hand pierced with a spindle, and die of the wound. This terrible gift made the whole company tremble, and every body fell a-crying.

At this very instant the young Fairy came out from behind the hangings, and spake these words aloud:

“Be reassured, O King and Queen; your daughter shall not die of this disaster: it is true, I have no power to undo intirely what my elder has done. The Princess shall indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but instead of dying, she shall only fall into a profound sleep, which shall last a hundred years; at the expiration of which a king’s son shall come and awake her.”

The King, to avoid the misfortune foretold by the old Fairy, caused immediately proclamations to be made, whereby every-body was forbidden, on pain of death, to spin with a distaff and spindle or to have so much as any spindle in their houses.

About fifteen or sixteen years after, the King and Queen being gone to one of their houses of pleasure, the young Princess happened one day to divert herself running up and down the palace; when going up from one apartment to another, she came into a little room on the top of a tower, where a good old woman, alone, was spinning with her spindle. This good woman had never heard of the King’s proclamation against spindles.

“What are you doing there, Goody?” said the Princess.

“I am spinning, my pretty child,” said the old woman, who did not know who she was.

“Ha!” said the Princess, “this is very pretty; how do you do it? Give it to me, that I may see if I can do so.” She had no sooner taken the spindle into her hand, than, whether being very hasty at it, somewhat unhandy, or that the decree of the Fairy had so ordained it, it ran into her hand, and she fell down in a swoon.

The good old woman not knowing very well what to do in this affair, cried out for help. People came in from every quarter in great numbers; they threw water upon the Princess’s face, unlaced her, struck her on the palms of her hands, and rubbed her temples with Hungary-water; but nothing would bring her to herself.

And now the King, who came up at the noise, bethought himself of the prediction of the Fairies, and judging very well that this must necessarily come to pass, since the Fairies had said it, caused the Princess to be carried into the finest apartment in his palace, and to be laid upon a bed all embroidered with gold and silver. One would have taken her for an angel, she was so very beautiful; for her swooning away had not diminished one bit of her complexion; her cheeks were carnation, and her lips like coral; indeed her eyes were shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about her that she was not dead. The King commanded that they should not disturb her, but let her sleep quietly till her hour of awakening was come.

The good Fairy, who had saved her life by condemning her to sleep a hundred years, was in the kingdom of Matakin, twelve thousand leagues off, when this accident befell the Princess; but she was instantly informed of it by a little dwarf, who had boots of seven leagues, that is, boots with which he could tread over seven leagues of ground at one stride. The Fairy came away immediately, and she arrived, about an hour after, in a fiery chariot, drawn by dragons. The King handed her out of the chariot, and she approved every thing he had done; but, as she had a very great foresight, she thought, when the Princess should awake, she might not know what to do with herself, being all alone in this old palace; and this was what she did: She touched with her wand every thing in the palace (except the King and the Queen), governesses, maids of honour, ladies of the bedchamber, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, under-cooks, scullions, guards, with their beef-eaters, pages, footmen; she likewise touched all the horses which were in the stables, as well as their grooms, the great dogs in the outward court, and pretty little Mopsey too, the Princess’s little spaniel-bitch, which lay by her on the bed.

Immediately upon her touching them, they all fell asleep, that they might not awake before their mistress, and that they might be ready to wait upon her when she wanted them. The very spits at the fire, as full as they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep, and the fire likewise. All this was done in a moment. Fairies are not long in doing their business.

And now the King and the Queen, having kissed their dear child without waking her, went out of the palace, and put forth a proclamation, that nobody should dare to come near it. This, however, was not necessary; for, in a quarter of an hour’s time, there grew up, all round about the park, such a vast number of trees, great and small, bushes and brambles, twining one within another, that neither man nor beast could pass thro’; so that nothing could be seen but the very top of the towers of the palace; and that too, not unless it was a good way off. Nobody doubted but the Fairy gave herein a sample of her art, that the Princess, while she continued sleeping, might have nothing to fear from any curious people.

When a hundred years were gone and past, the son of the King then reigning, and who was of another family from that of the sleeping Princess, being gone a-hunting on that side of the country, asked, what were those towers which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood? Every one answered according as they had heard; some said that it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits; others, that all the sorcerers and witches of the country kept there their sabbath, or nights meeting. The common opinion was that an Ogre 1 lived there, and that he carried thither all the little children he could catch, that he might eat them up at his leisure, without any-body’s being able to follow him, as having himself, only, the power to pass thro’ the wood.

The Prince was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very aged countryman spake to him thus: “May it please your Royal Highness, it is now above fifty years since I heard my father, who had heard my grandfather, say that there then was in this castle, a Princess, the most beautiful was ever seen; that she must sleep there a hundred years, and should be awaked by a king’s son; for whom she was reserved.” The young Prince was all on fire at these words, believing, without a moment’s doubt, that he could put an end to this rare adventure; and pushed on by love and honour resolved that moment to look into it.

Scarce had he advanced towards the wood, when all the great trees, the bushes and brambles, gave way of themselves to let him pass thro’; he walked up to the castle which he saw at the end of a large avenue which he went into; and what a little surprised him was, that he saw none of his people could follow him, because the trees closed again, as soon as he had pass’d thro’ them. However, he did not cease from continuing his way; a young and amorous Prince is always valiant. He came into a spacious outward court, where everything he saw might have frozen up the most fearless person with horror. There reigned over all a most frightful silence; the image of death everywhere shewed itself, and there was nothing to be seen but stretched out bodies of men and animals, all seeming to be dead. He, however, very well knew, by the ruby faces and pimpled noses of the beef-eaters, that they were only asleep; and their goblets, wherein still remained some drops of wine, shewed plainly, that they fell asleep in their cups.

He then crossed a court paved with marble, went up the stairs, and came into the guard-chamber, where the guards were standing in their ranks, with their muskets upon their shoulders, and snoring as loud as they could. After that he went through several rooms full of gentlemen and ladies, all asleep, some standing, others sitting. At last he came into a chamber all gilded with gold, where he saw, upon a bed, the curtains of which were all open, the finest sight was ever beheld: a Princess, who appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and whose bright, and in a manner resplendent beauty, had somewhat in it divine. He approached with trembling and admiration, and fell down before her upon his knees.

And now, as the inchantment was at an end, the Princess awaked, and looking on him with eyes more tender than the first view might seem to admit of: “Is it you, my Prince,” said she to him, “you have tarried long.”

The Prince, charmed with these words, and much more with the manner in which they were spoken, knew not how to shew his joy and gratitude; he assured her, that he loved her better than he did himself; his discourse was not well connected, but it pleased her all the more; little eloquence, a great deal of love. He was more at a loss than she, and we need not wonder at it; she had time to think on what to say to him; for it is very probable (though history mentions nothing of it) that the good Fairy, during so long a sleep, had entertained her with pleasant dreams. In short, when they talked four hours together, they said not half what they had to say.

In the mean while, all the palace awaked; every one thought upon their particular business; and as all of them were not in love, they were ready to die for hunger; the chief lady of honour, being as sharp set as other folks, grew very impatient, and told the Princess aloud, That supper was served up. The Prince helped the Princess to rise, she was entirely dressed, and very magnificently, but his Royal Highness took care not to tell her that she was dressed like his great grand-mother, and had a point-band peeping over a high collar; she looked not a bit the less beautiful and charming for all that.

They went into the great hall of looking-glasses, where they supped, and were served by the Princess’s officers; the violins and hautboys played old tunes, but very excellent, tho’ it was now above a hundred years since they had been played; and after supper, without losing any time, the lord almoner married them in the chapel of the castle, and the chief lady of honour drew the curtains. They had but very little sleep; the Princess had no occasion, and the Prince left her next morning to return into the city, where his father must needs have been anxious on his account. The Prince told him that he lost his way in the forest, as he was hunting, and that he had lain at the cottage of a collier, who gave him cheese and brown bread.

The King his father, who was of an easy disposition, believed him; but his mother could not be persuaded this was true; and seeing that he went almost every day a-hunting, and that he always had some excuse ready when he had laid out three or four nights together, she no longer doubted he had some little amour, for he lived with the Princess above two whole years, and had by her two children, the eldest of which, who was a daughter, was named Aurora, and the youngest, who was a son, they called Day, because he was even handsomer and more beautiful than his sister.

The Queen said more than once to her son, in order to bring him to speak freely to her, that a young man must e’en take his pleasure; but he never dared to trust her with his secret; he feared her, tho’ he loved her; for she was of the race of the Ogres, and the King would never have married her, had it not been for her vast riches; it was even whispered about the court, that she had Ogreish inclinations, and that, whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to refrain from falling upon them. And so the Prince would never tell her one word.

But when the King was dead, which happened about two years afterwards; and he saw himself lord and master, he openly declared his marriage; and he went in great ceremony to fetch his Queen from the castle. They made a magnificent entry into the capital city, she riding between her two children.

Some time after, the King went to make war with the Emperor Cantalabutte, his neighbour. He left the government of the kingdom to the Queen his mother, and earnestly recommended to her care his wife and children. He was like to be at war all the summer, and as soon as he departed, the Queen-mother sent her daughter-in-law and her children to a country-house among the woods, that she might with the more ease gratify her horrible longing.

Some few days afterwards she went thither herself, and said to her clerk of the kitchen:

“I have a mind to eat little Aurora for my dinner to morrow.”

“Ah! Madam,” cried the clerk of the kitchen.

“I will have it so,” replied the Queen (and this she spake in the tone of an Ogress, who had a strong desire to eat fresh meat), “and will eat her with a Sauce Robert.” 2

The poor man knowing very well that he must not play tricks with Ogresses, took his great knife and went up into little Aurora’s chamber. She was then four years old, and came up to him jumping and laughing, to take him about the neck, and ask him for some sugar-candy. Upon which he began to weep, the great knife fell out of his hand, and he went into the back-yard, and killed a little lamb, and dressed it with such good sauce, that his mistress assured him she had never eaten anything so good in her life. He had at the same time taken up little Aurora, and carried her to his wife, to conceal her in the lodging he had at the end of the court yard.

About eight days afterwards, the wicked Queen said to the clerk of the kitchen:

“I will sup upon little Day.”

He answered not a word, being resolved to cheat her, as he had done before. He went to find out little Day, and saw him with a little foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a great monkey; the child being then only three years of age. He took him up in his arms, and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber along with his sister, and in the room of little Day cooked up a young kid very tender, which the Ogress found to be wonderfully good.

This was hitherto all mighty well: but one evening this wicked Queen said to her clerk of the kitchen:

“I will eat the Queen with the same sauce I had with her children.”

It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able to deceive her. The young Queen was turned of twenty, not reckoning the hundred years she had been asleep: her skin was somewhat tough, tho’ very fair and white; and how to find in the yard a beast so firm, was what puzzled him. He took then a resolution, that he might save his own life, to cut the Queen’s throat; and going up into her chamber, with intent to do it at once, he put himself into as great a fury as he could possibly, and came into the young Queen’s room with his dagger in his hand. He would not, however, surprise her, but told her, with a great deal of respect, the orders he had received from the Queen-mother.

“Do it, do it,” said she stretching out her neck, “execute your orders, and then I shall go and see my children, my poor children, whom I so much and so tenderly loved,” for she thought them dead ever since they had been taken away without her knowledge.

“No, no, Madam,” cried the poor clerk of the kitchen, all in tears, “you shall not die, and yet you shall see your children again; but it must be in my lodgings, where I have concealed them, and I shall deceive the Queen once more, by giving her in your stead a young hind.”

Upon this he forthwith conducted her to his chamber; where leaving her to embrace her children, and cry along with them, he went and dressed a hind, which the Queen had for her supper, and devoured it with the same appetite, as if it had been the young Queen. Exceedingly was she delighted with her cruelty, and she had invented a story to tell the King, at his return, how ravenous wolves had eaten up the Queen his wife, and her two children.

One evening, as she was, according to her custom, rambling round about the courts and yards of the palace, to see if she could smell any fresh meat, she heard, in a ground-room little Day crying, for his mamma was going to whip him, because he had been naughty; and she heard, at the same time, little Aurora begging pardon for her brother.

The Ogress presently knew the voice of the Queen and her children, and being quite mad that she had been thus deceived, she commanded next morning, by break of day (with a most horrible voice, which made every body tremble) that they should bring into the middle of the great court a large tub, which she caused to be filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and all sorts of serpents, in order to have thrown into it the Queen and her children, the clerk of the kitchen, his wife and maid; all whom she had given orders should be brought thither with their hands tied behind them.

They were brought out accordingly, and the executioners were just going to throw them into the tub, when the King (who was not so soon expected) entered the court on horse-back (for he came post) and asked, with the utmost astonishment, what was the meaning of that horrible spectacle? No one dared to tell him; when the Ogress, all inraged to see what had happened, threw herself head-foremost into the tub, and was instantly devoured by the ugly creatures she had ordered to be thrown into it for others. The King could not but be very sorry, for she was his mother; but he soon comforted himself with his beautiful wife, and his pretty children.

1 Ogre is a giant, with long teeth and claws, with a raw head and bloody-bones, who runs away with naughty little boys and girls, and eats them up. [Note by the translator.]

2  This is a French sauce, made with onions shredded and boiled tender in butter, to which is added vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and a little wine. [Note by the translator.]

Introduction to Literature Copyright © by Judy Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Sleeping Beauty (Essay Sample)

Sleeping beauty.

When I decided to take part in a panel discussion about the role of fairy tales in the modern literature, little did I know that I would learn to allot during the convention. My fellow panelists were editors and authors whose fairy tale work had influenced the modern storytelling context. The title for discussion was, “what does sleeping beauty means in the modern context?”. The question meant that we needed to explore the relevance of the fairy tale within the modern world and make interpretation using sleeping beauty as the primary focus.

As we discussed, the other panelists presented several arguments about why the fairy tale of sleeping beauty continues to be popular even in modern times.  We researched on the topic by digging into the archives to present an old version of the tale. During the presentation, the panelists discussed who the story was really about. During my research, I realized that sleeping beauty had much to offer in our discussion. During the discussion, we recounted some of the oldest and provocative versions of sleeping beauty.

Looking at the old version of this fairy tale, there were startling events presenting the journey of both lovers and their transformation process. Each of them experienced death as two sets of parents prepared to bury their children. Even though the Sultan’s son awakens the sleeping beauty, their relationship is not a  mature one, but the society does not sanction it. When the sultan son revives the sleeping beauty from death, they are considered equal, and their marriage is one between adults.  In our discussion, we noted that sleeping beauty had undergone several changes in the 29th century, when it was published by the  Grimm brothers targeting children. The Grimm brothers maintained some of the darker images from the story, but the sexuality and the humor disappeared.

Victorian publishers tried to  sanitize the fairy tale toning them down the violence, hence simplifying the narrative. During this period authors wanted readers to see the stories as charming by the reflection of gender roles during that time to present appropriate morality. Like other fairy tales, sleeping beauty used emotionally evocative images that were meant to engage the audience and to draw them to the morality behind the narrative. One panelist during the discussion reminded us that the underlying theme of the story is the power struggle between the young bride to be the older groom. The symbols of feminine power struggles are evident throughout the story, and everyone on the panel agreed that  figures of evil fairy were presented like the old woman spinning, the barren wife and the ogres’ mother.

As we noted sleeping beauty in the 20th century has been presented not as a collective identity,  but in several themes, the princess finds herself in many different guises. She is portrayed  as a helpless stay at home girls of the 1950s, a bold heroine,  an oppressed   holocaust survivor, a sexually abused child, among  other  themes.  As we came to the end of the discussion, we noted that sleeping beauty  the main theme has diminished  in many ways  with more civilized version being presented.

In the end, we all agreed that sleeping beauty is a  masterpiece, which present power. In our discussion, we all noted something very appealing about the figure. The princess is seemingly passive, but she is surrounded life threatening events including death.  The older version of the story presents the beauty’s original wit and strength. Even though the many versions have tried to alter her nature,   her transformation continues to shine making it a remarkable fairy tale.

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Maleficent — Comparative Analysis Of Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty And Maleficent

Comparative Analysis of Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent

• Categories: Fairy Tale Literary Criticism Maleficent

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Words: 1952 |

10 min read

Published: Aug 6, 2021

Words: 1952 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Works Cited

• Perrault, C. (1697). La belle au bois dormant [Sleeping Beauty in the Woods]. Paris, France: Charles Perrault.
• Stromberg, R. (Director). (2014). Maleficent [Film]. United States: Walt Disney Pictures.
• Zipes, J. (1988). The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Tatar, M. (2004). The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Jack, Z., & Jack, G. (2007). Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
• Bettelheim, B. (1976). The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
• Knoepflmacher, U. C. (1999). The Sleeping Beauty: Evolutionary Considerations. In D. Tatar (Ed.), The Classic Fairy Tales (pp. 282-298). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Zipes, J. (2006). Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Zipes, J. (2002). Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Warner, M. (1995). From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Best Dance Essay Examples

“sleeping beauty” ballet reflection.

602 words | 3 page(s)

Sleeping Beauty is a classic tale, made most popular in its Disney animated version but also acclaimed on stage. The ballet is by Petipa and is performed in many opera houses across the world. The performance that I saw held many points of meaning for me as well as interesting aspects of production. Two points stood out the most. In terms of meaning, I found the rescue aspect of the ballet most meaningful, and in terms of production I found the scenery most meaningful.

First, the meaningful point of the story, for me, was the aspect of rescue that carried the plot along. We initially see rescue portrayed in the problem of the wicked fairy Carabosse who does not receive an invitation to the christening of Princess Aurora. The fairy, then, rebels against the Princess and concocts the trouble that drives the entire story. At this point, however, the aspect of rescue is already latent. Carabosse needs rescue from her wickedness and evil schemes; the Princess needs rescue from such a troubled fairy and ultimately from her deep sleep that she cannot rouse herself out of. Rescue reflects the needs of the characters, whether they realize it or not.

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Why was this aspect of the ballet meaningful for me? I found it meaningful not only because it was interesting or a featured part of the plot. I found it meaningful because of the need for rescue throughout our lives, and for most of human history. Humans have a problem, one that we often do not admit and often fail to grasp fully. Something is wrong with the human race, as evidenced in the continual reports in the news and the overriding concern with making things right in the world. But the nature of the problem is not my main interest or connection to Sleeping Beauty, rather the need for rescue and its many forms carries most importance for me. Some people turn to religion, others to drugs and fun times or wealth, and others turn towards people. The Prince in this ballet is the rescuer, something that many men and women aspire to in our contemporary culture.

Second, the production aspect that carried most meaning for me was the scenery. The scenery changed many times during the ballet, from an opening scene, and then to later castles and fantastic environments. All of the scenes carried a sense of another world, as if the located the audience not in real life but in a place and time unknown. The fantastic feelings of the environment complimented the colors of the scenery. The brilliant shades of blue were my most favorite, and the flashes of red as well as the night scenes were wonderful. These production elements of color and aura all fall under the aspect of scenery, one of the most powerful and unique aspects to stage plays. It may also be one of the most challenging. For a movie production crew can create a set in a controlled space with as much time as they need, without concern for anything that does not appear on the camera shot. However, on the stage, actors must dance and the scenes must change ever so often.

Sleeping Beauty is not only an impressive ballet but a meaningful one. Its theme of rescue, both latent and explicit, moved me and connected with parts of my life and the world’s livelihood. The production elements involved in scenery also carried meaning for me, showing both the impressive quality of Sleeping Beauty and its otherworldly and beautiful aspects. And the best part, was that the sleeping beauty was rescued.

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University of Notre Dame

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Essays on Paradoxes

Terence Horgan,   Essays on Paradoxes , Oxford University Press, 2016, 336pp, $74.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199858422.

Reviewed by Colin R. Caret, Yonsei University

There are many insights to be gleaned from this book, but perhaps the most important is this: what at first seem like solutions to disparate problems may, in fact, turn out to be parts of a bigger picture. This is a heartening thought for any scholars who find their attention drawn to multiple topics at the same time. The essays in this collection present Terence Horgan's considered views on the Newcomb problem, the Monty Hall problem, the Two-Envelope Paradox, the sorites paradox, and the Sleeping Beauty problem. The titular paradoxes, however, largely serve as loci for reflection on practical rationality and epistemic probability. It is an engaging collection full of tantalizing ideas, foremost amongst which is an attack on the broadly Bayesian combination of a subjectivist 'credal' interpretation of probabilities together with the notion that standard conditionalization is 'the only appropriate way to reason dynamically about probabilities' (p.290). There are fourteen chapters but just three previously unpublished essays: one on Newcomb's problem, one on the Sleeping Beauty problem, and a 'big picture' concluding essay on epistemic probability. The final chapter offers the most substantive new contribution, drawing together threads of discussion from several previous chapters to articulate a novel view of the nature and dynamics of probability. Read side by side, these essays also offer a welcome glimpse into one philosopher's process of intellectual development and refinement.

Chapters 1-3 concern the Newcomb problem. With millions of dollars on the line and uncertainty about what the powerful being has predicted, how should you choose? In the first chapter, Horgan argues that a pragmatically appropriate 'back-tracking' reading of counterfactuals supports one-boxing (p.20). The second and third chapters offer a reversal of sorts, as Horgan shows counterfactual analysis to be inessential to reasoning in this situation. In Chapter 3, one of the previously unpublished essays, Horgan proposes that Newcomb's problem is best understood as a deep antinomy of practical reason because it exemplifies a kind of irresoluble clash between constitutive norms of practical rationality (p.57).

Chapter 4 concerns the Monty Hall problem, a surprisingly far-reaching puzzle about a game show. Horgan lucidly explains why it is a mistake to think that there is no reason to switch doors in this type of choice situation. The key is to realize that Monty Hall's revelation of one of the incorrect doors is asymmetrically constrained by the rules of the game. The problem is interesting in its own right and also serves as the central illustration for Horgan's conception of epistemic probability and methods of probabilistic update that he develops in the final chapter.

Chapters 5-6 concern the Two-Envelope Paradox. Having chosen one of the envelopes, possibly the one containing less money, you are given the opportunity to switch to the other envelope. The seemingly paradoxical result is this: despite the lack of any new evidence regarding the contents of the envelopes, the expected utility of switching is 1.25 times that of staying with your original choice. Horgan argues that there is nothing wrong with this calculation (p.89). The flaw behind the paradox lies in the further normative assumption that you ought to switch envelopes based upon this calculation. This turns on the intensionality of epistemic probability contexts which allows us to distinguish between several kinds of expected utility and corresponding principles for maximizing utilities (pp.97-102,114).

Chapters 7-9 concern the sorites paradox and vagueness. Horgan advocates what he calls transvaluationism : the view that vague language is governed by mutually unsatisfiable principles. These principles manifest as norms grounding prohibitions like 'never attribute different statuses to immediate neighbors' of any sorites sequence (p.187). Language can exhibit vagueness precisely because it is a norm-governed practice of this kind, whereas Horgan contends that ontological vagueness is impossible because 'the world itself does not engage in norm-governed practice' (p.190). This view is meant to stand independently of working out the logic of vague discourse.

Chapters 10-13 concern the Sleeping Beauty problem. Horgan holds that when Beauty is awakened, she acquires new information that is pertinent to how she assigns probabilities to the outcome of the coin flip. The result of conditionalizing on this information is the asymmetric 'thirder' probability assignment. A critic, Joel Pust, objects that this requires Beauty to assign a nonzero preliminary probability to the statement 'The coin lands heads and today is Tuesday' which she knows to be impossible as it entails that she is currently asleep and unconscious. In Chapter 12, one of the previously unpublished essays, Horgan appeals to the intensionality of epistemic probability contexts to justify the view that metaphysical impossibilities can, in fact, be epistemic possibilities (pp.242-243).

The final chapter elaborates on Horgan's views about the nature and dynamics of probability. The main points of interest are an evidential interpretation of epistemic probability that is distinct from both subjectivist 'credal' interpretations and 'logical' interpretations; clarification of the notions of preliminary probability and generalized conditionalization; and further reflections on the intensionality of epistemic probability contexts.

As should be clear by now, these essays are densely packed with ideas that will interest anyone working in epistemology, philosophy of language, or logic. I will remark on just a few aspects of the book.

The Frustrations of Transvaluationism

The lack of overall thematic coherence amongst the essays is slightly disappointing. This is felt most acutely with respect to the chapters on the sorites paradox and vagueness. All of the other paradoxes featured in this collection are probabilistic or decision-theoretic in nature, feeding into the final essay. The chapters on the sorites and vagueness, by contrast, only disrupt the coherence and flow of the collection, especially as they were placed smack dab in the middle of the book.

These chapters also have the least to offer. Transvaluationism can be fairly summarized as the view that vagueness does not arise at the level of fundamental ontology, it arises only at the level of 'derivative' ontology and then only because the governing semantic principles of discourse about such properties are incoherent. It is a diagnostic view, akin to inconsistency theories of meaning (see, e.g., Eklund, 2002 and Scharp, 2013). These views aim to explain symptoms of paradoxes like: why do soritical arguments exert cognitive 'pull'? The proposed explanation is that our compulsion to draw such inferences is grounded in semantic competence with the incoherent, vague concepts involved. This view is not without it attractions but it also, notably, does not offer a solution to the paradox.

Horgan suggests, however, that transvaluationism is compatible with several logics that could allow us to regiment vague discourse in order to avoid lapsing into triviality. This is an odd suggestion. Consider the tolerance-like principle ISS: Each item in a sorites sequence has the same status as its immediate neighbors. Horgan claims that all vague concepts induce sorites sequences that conform to this principle (pp.181-182). Now consider a supervaluational treatment of vague discourse according to which, for a given vague predicate B, it is false that if B(n) then B(n+1) for neighboring members of a relevant sorites sequence. If anything, this seems quite incompatible with ISS, yet Horgan says that supervaluational logic is a possible implementation of his view (p.184). It is not clear how this can be right nor how the transvaluationist can rely on such resources to mediate against the paradoxicality of the sorites. The book would probably have been stronger if the chapters on vagueness had been left out entirely.

Beyond Standard Bayesianism

On the other hand, the most rewarding parts of the book are those that closely inform one another, namely, the essays on the two-envelope problem, Sleeping Beauty, and the final 'big picture' essay. A novel account of epistemic probability is developed over the course of these essays. Horgan contends that epistemic probabilities are degrees of evidential support that accrue to propositions under special circumstances. The error behind subjectivist 'credal' interpretations of probability is that they conflate strength of evidence and epistemic confidence. For example, I believe both that Seoul is the capital of South Korea and that King Sejong mandated the institution of the modern Korean alphabet, but I have much firmer evidence for the former proposition than I do for the latter. According to Horgan, I have equal confidence in these propositions insofar as I believe them both, but my belief in one of these propositions is stronger than my belief in the other. By conflating these phenomena, subjective Bayesians come to speak as if belief itself comes in degrees, which it does not (p.283). This is a compelling critique that subjective Bayesians should think about seriously.

According to Horgan, an assignment of epistemic probabilities only arises when an agent knows that a set of propositions 'form a partition of the pertinent space of possibilities and . . . are all equally likely relative to one's available evidence' (p.286). If these divide into subpossibilities, we get a hierarchical probability partition, or HPP, about which we can reason using what Horgan calls 'intuitive' Bayesian updating: removing cells in the HPP eliminated by one's strongest evidence, then reassigning probabilities to the remaining cells in a way that maintains their ratios to one another.

The Monty Hall problem nicely illustrates this process. You know there is a prize behind one of three doors and have equally good evidence for each Pi ('the prize is behind door i'). Suppose you choose door 3 and are then told that Monty will open one of the remaining doors not containing the prize. You have equally good evidence for each (Oi) 'Monty opens door i' but there is an important asymmetry: the only situation in which Monty has any real flexibility about which door to open is if the prize is behind the door you first chose, door 3. We can portray this assignment as HPPA.

     HPPA P1, 1/3

              O2,1/4

             O1,1/3

            O1, 1/6

            O2, 1/6

Suppose, now, that Monty reveals there is no prize behind door 2. The result of intuitive updating on HPPA is the assignment in HPPB.

   HPPB P1, 2/3

            O2, 2/3

                  O2, 1/3      

To be sure, this shows why one should switch doors in a Monty Hall situation but Horgan also wants to draw a more interesting conclusion. He describes a problem with the same solution reached in a different way:

Consider . . . a version of the Monty Hall Problem in which (i) you choose a door (say, door 3), then (ii) Monty opens a different door (say, door 2), then (iii) Monty informs you that there is a fine prize behind one door and nothing behind the other two doors, and thereafter (iv) Monty informs you about the door-opening policy that he has been following. In this situation you can still reason by . . . using intuitive Bayesian updating to pare down [HPPA] to [HPPB]. But this is not really standard . . .  updating, for two reasons. (p.299)

In this problem, one knows O2 is true even before holding the assignment HPPA, so in this case HPPA is not an assignment of literal prior probabilities and the information driving the update is not new information. This is an example of bracketing a portion of one's evidence to assign what Horgan calls preliminary probabilities , then using a 'generalized' form of updating by bringing pertinent evidence to bear on this assignment.

Horgan sees many lessons here for Bayesians. First, even in the original Monty Hall problem, HPPA was generated ex nihilo from completely new information. Before learning the rules of the game one has no basis to assign probabilities to any of the propositions involved. Contra the usual Bayesian approach, such assignments cannot result from standard conditionalization (pp.295-296). Second, while the results of Horgan's intuitive updating can sometimes be emulated by standard conditionalization, this is not the case for generalized updating on preliminary probabilities. Despite the anti-Bayesian rhetoric, one suspects that some of Horgan's lessons could be accommodated by a more nuanced Bayesian approach.

One reason Horgan wants to make generalized updating palatable is that it plays a central role in his analysis of the Sleeping Beauty problem. Beauty is told on Sunday that she will be put to sleep, awoken on Monday (and later told what day it is), then put back to sleep. A fair coin will then be tossed. If it comes up heads, the experimenters will do nothing. If it comes up tails, her memory of the previous day will be erased and she will then be awoken on Tuesday. Let H be the hypothesis that the coin lands heads and L the hypothesis that it lands tails. Let M be the hypothesis that today is Monday and T the hypothesis that today is Tuesday. Horgan says that when Beauty is awoken, before she knows what day it is, she should assign preliminary probabilities relative to the portion of her evidence that brackets out the fact that she is currently awake, as in HPPC.

    HPPC H, 1/2           M, 1/4           T, 1/4 L, 1/2           M, 1/4           T, 1/4

This is something like how a third party would assign probabilities just based on the objective chances. The information that she is now awake, however, eliminates the H+T cell and by generalized updating she arrives at the probability assignment HPPD.

      HPPD H, 1/3            M, 1/3  L, 1/2            M, 1/3            T, 1/3

This is Horgan's argument for thirdism and his attempt to clarify precisely why Beauty's being awake is pertinent to how she should assign probabilities to the possible outcomes of the coin toss. Unfortunately, he offers no systematic story about when one should rely on preliminary probabilities or why they ought to be assigned in this way. By contrast, Jenkins (2005) argues that even if Beauty's awakening is pertinent new evidence it should lead her to halfism.

Obviously, I have just scratched the surface of this collection but I hope to have conveyed my appreciation for what it offers. Horgan's work manifests an admirable curiosity and willingness to 'follow his nose' where it leads. Those who are interested in the featured paradoxes or probability more generally will especially benefit from digesting these essays.

Eklund, Matti. 2002. "Inconsistent languages". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 64:251-275, 2002.

Jenkins, C.S. 2005. "Sleeping beauty: A wake-up call". Philosophia Mathematica , 13:194-201.

Scharp, Kevin. 2013. Replacing Truth . Oxford University Press: Oxford.